What Kids Wish Parents Knew about Parenting

What Kids Wish Parents Knew about Parenting

What You Need to Know Before It’s Too Late

JOE WHITE

Howard Publishing Co.

New York London Toronto Sydney

What Kids Wish Parents Knew about Parenting © 1998 by Joe White

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America

Published by Howard Publishing Co., Inc.,

3117 North 7th Street, West Monroe, Louisiana 71291-2227

03 04 05 06 07   10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations within critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

White, Joe, 1948-

What kids wish parents knew about parenting : what you need to know before it’s too late / Joe White.

p.  cm.

ISBN 1-58229-341-4 (pbk.)

ISBN-13: 978-1-582-29341-7

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-12430-7

www.SimonandSchuster.com

1. Child rearing—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Parenting—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.

HQ769.3.W48  1998

649′.1—dc21   98-7097

CIP

Interior design by Desktop Miracles, Inc., Dallas, Texas

Scripture quotations not otherwise marked are from the New American Standard Bible © 1973 by The Lockman Foundation.

To Trevor

Like a giant oak, memories of you will outlive us all.

As I commence writing a book that I frequently have prayed will affect every aspect of parenting for every mother and father who reads it, a familiar lump nags within my neck, making difficult a simple swallow.

The lump in my throat is a tumor I’ve grown to appreciate. Surgically, it is impossible to get to … for it’s a lump of grief, accompanied often by watery eyes and an empty heart. I’m lonesome for a man who was my second daddy, who was killed in a plane crash several years ago.

To Dr. Trevor E. Mabery, my encourager, my other father, my example, and my friend … this book is dedicated.

As he successfully loved two boys and a girl of his own into their young adult lives, Trevor’s model as a daddy was unsurpassed. His unconditional love was poured out on his most fortunate family.

He was also a model of success in his profession. So skilled was he that even the famous Dr. Mayo let him perform his most difficult operations when Trevor was still a young surgeon in the formative years of his career. Small children born with severely deformed faces left Dr. Mabery’s operating room with beautiful new eyes, mouths, and noses … thanks to this man and his skillful team.

Internationally known and in great demand, Trevor never missed a football game when a son was on the field. For years, he and his son rolled newspapers together at 5:30 A.M. for the boy’s paper route. During hunting season, he and his sons were together in the duck blind or deer stand, weekend after weekend.

His smile never dimmed. He lived always for his God and his family—until the fateful moment when the twin-engine plane he was aboard couldn’t climb out of a beautiful Rocky Mountain valley, and crashed into Dead Indian Peak some fifteen thousand feet above sea level.

His reputation as a dad lives on … still influencing my life … and permeating the pages of this book.

Acknowledgment

I want to offer deep expressions of gratitude to my dear mom, for always making our house a home; to Gary Smalley and Josh McDowell, for their loving hearts and wisdom in helping me develop this book; and to Johnny Koons, for running the show while I took time off to write.

CONTENTS

Foreword

PART I

The Lights Are On, But …

1. Slipping Away

2. The Champs

3. Who Cares?

PART II

A Homeowner’s Guide to the Family Gold Mine

4. The Light That’s Nearest

5. Close the Zoo

6. Test Yourself

7. Unconditional Listening, Unconditional Love

8. Which Way Are You Facing?

9. Take Me Fishing Again

PART III

You’re the Best

10. Making Their Day—and More

11. Help Them Dream, Help Them Build

12. A Cheerleader

13. A Coach

14. Strengths and Weaknesses

15. Fifty Phrases to Encourage Your Child

PART IV

Safe at Home

16. Oh, Those X-Ray Eyes!

17. That’s Not in There, God!

18. Discipline Is a Lifestyle

19. My First Lady

20. The Teenage Years … the Best Years

21. Crossroads

PART V

Tomorrow’s Family Album

22. The Generation That Followed Discovery

23. Dancing

24. Discovery at Dawn

25. Promise-Keeping Men Keep Promises to Their Children

FOREWORD

Today, more than ever before, there is a movement of men and women seeking to love their children. Fathers are spending more quality and quantity time with their children. Mothers are realizing that their children are more important than their goals for career and achievement. But this movement is threatened by a roadblock that could bring its momentum to a complete stop. That roadblock is the lack of practical methods and skills on how to love our children.

As a father of thirty-one years, I have tremendous empathy for all the fathers and mothers who want to love their children but don’t know how. What Kids Wish Parents Knew about Parenting provides a wonderful blueprint for how to love your children. Joe White brings more than thirty years of hands-on experience with hundreds of thousands of kids. Not only do Joe and his wife, Debbie-Jo, have four of their own children, Joe leads the nation’s largest Christian sports camp, Kanakuk Kamps. Every summer more than fifteen thousand kids, ages eight to eighteen, spend time in a Christ-centered program that changes lives. I know how effective Kanakuk Kamp is because all three of my children were campers and counselors over a ten-year period. I have seen firsthand how Joe White’s programs communicate personal love and growth to thousands of kids and especially to my own.

Because Joe has spent thousands of hours listening to kids share their needs, he knows what kids wish their parents knew about parenting. Many children want their parents’ time, many want their laughter, many need their ears, and many want their hearts. Joe White also shares his own failures and his struggles to find the balance between a busy lifestyle and making his own family his first priority.

If you’ll take the time to read this book and apply its principles, you will see a transformation in your children. I challenge you to invest the courage and energy to love your children, Joe White will show you how!

—GARY SMALLEY

PRESIDENT, TODAY’S FAMILY

All theories aside … meet America’s youth and the homes that make them the kind of young people they are.

PART I

The Lights Are On, But …

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they’re (almost) too strong to be broken.

orphan \or-fan\ n, LA child whose parents have left him physically. 2. A child whose parents have left him emotionally. 3. Can be evidenced by a half-smoked joint in a jeans pocket or a sexy love note left inadvertently in a drawer or a citation from the local police.

Slipping Away

Were so busy giving our kids what we didn’t have that we don’t take time to give them what we did have.

I hate to sound selfish, like everything’s mine, but please don’t get mad when 1 ask for your time.

I’ll never forget the day I hit bottom in my career as a daddy. I first started realizing my failure the day my oldest son’s babysitter taught him how to ride his bike. It’s such a monumental achievement for a boy—in fact, five decades haven’t erased the memory of reaching that milestone in my own life. But Brady had to experience it without me.

Busy (as usual) with work, I met Brady for a quick lunch that day, and he beamed with excitement as he shared the news.

I had all the right things to say: Wow, Brady! That’s great! I’m so proud of you. Then I added, Brady, can I come watch you ride your bike later this afternoon?

The response from my sweet, gentle-spirited six-year-old fell on me like an avalanche. No, Dad, that’s okay. You’re busy in the summer.

I’m fighting the tears again as I remember the deep remorse I felt. He had opened my heart more skillfully than a surgeon.

I was losing my son.

He knew it, and I knew it.

In my job as president of a large summer camp complex, I was so busy rescuing other people’s kids that my own were drowning. And the problem—as I knew Brady couldn’t help but discover as time went on—was that I’m busy not only in the summer but also in the fall, winter, and spring.

Brady … he was so little then, but he had the super imagination and the super-sensitivity that made his daddy work harder on smoothing his many rough edges and his hard-driving disposition. With a quick look into the future, I could see Brady as a teenager in someone else’s counseling office trying to sort out his bitterness toward a father too busy to show he cared.

Not long afterward, my youngest daughter was attending one of our short-term camps. We agreed to abide by the rule requesting parents not to visit their children for the entire week. (That’s tough!)

On the fifth night, Courtney got a touch of homesickness. She began to cry, and her counselor came to her bed to give her some hugs and tenderness.

Corky, don’t cry anymore. You’ll be home in two days, and you’ll get to see your daddy and everything.

I never get to see my daddy! was her bold protest.

When the week was over, the camp director came to my house. Sit down, he said abruptly. I sat down, wondering what this was all about.

He told me about the conversation between the counselor and Courtney—little Corky, with long, blond hair and dimples that can’t help but melt her daddy’s heart. Even when the lower lip was out in an occasional protest, a few tickles and funny faces could bring the dimples back to their rightful place.

What are you going to do about it? he asked.

I squirmed. He looked deep into my eyes.

The phone rang. As I went to answer it, the intercom buzzed. Then someone came to the door with an emergency. After responding to all three, I sat back down. He was still looking intently at me.

I asked you, ‘What are you going to do about it?’

I don’t know … it’s hard … there are so many demands.

Joe, who are the most important people in your life?

My family.

You’re not showing it!

He sat there and didn’t give an inch. Finally, I agreed to some commitments.

This book is an expression of my gratitude for my months of open-heart surgery that summer. To this day, I’m carrying out the commitments I made back then. It’s still hard. The demands are still there. In fact, they’re getting worse. But my priorities changed. I aborted almost everything from my life that stood between my children and me. The use-of-time knife stripped away most of the fat that surrounded the lean meat of necessity.

My wife and I continued the struggle to accomplish more during the necessary hours of daily labor, and in the remaining hours to prioritize time with our children above anything else during these years while they were still at home. We were wonderfully amazed that there was even enough time for a few luxuries.

Brady became my best male friend. I worked early and late when he wasn’t available, so that when he came home, I could grab a bat and ball or a go-cart or a fishing rod or a made-up adventure, all for the honor of getting to be by his side for a few golden ticks of the clock. His brother Cooper and his sisters Jamie and Courtney … all of them became World’s Best Companions to me.

The four young children who captured my heart are now young adults. The lessons I learned and put into practice then continue to reap a joyous harvest.

Allow me, in love, to ask you the same question the camp director asked me those many years ago: Who are the most important people in your life?

If it’s your family … are you showing it?

If not … what are you going to do about it?

Just as during the early days of work on Mount Rushmore, when the explosives engineer was told to blast away all the granite that didn’t look like the face of a president, so I urge you to strip away—with dynamite, if necessary—everything in your life that doesn’t look like family gold.

champion \champ-e-un\ n. LA person who is willing to put other’s needs before his own. 2. Every child who has parents willing to unleash his or her potential.

The Champs

All children are champs—with potential they’re packed; discovery alone is